What is usually meant is that by and large, they don't drink, or at least, not to the same degree and not in the same way.
They don't go in for binge drinking, we tell ourselves, and they grow up with a sensible attitude towards alcohol fashioned by years of sipping eau rougie - reddened water, that is to say heavily diluted table wine - from relatively early childhood.
French tourism officials of my acquaintance agree that one of the reasons bars sometimes struggle to make ends meet in France is that there is simply no culture of "rounds".
Even a group of young friends will often make do with a single drink each, however long they choose to occupy their table. Given the price of consommations in the café, the reluctance to splash out is understandable - and perhaps makes a cause-and-effect contribution to ensuring a cocktail or beer costs way too much.
And we've all spotted the French couples making a half bottle of wine last all the way through a plateau de fruits de mer. Have you ever seen a British couple do that?
Yet when I had to check on the figures recently, France was still some way ahead of the UK and most other countries for alcoholism rates. The opposite message of anecdotal evidence means that someone in France must be doing an awful lot of drinking to keep the averages so high.
And what is this I read in my trusted old stand-by Var-Matin ? Four communes in the Var enforcing strict bans on drinking in public places........
Each of the towns - Sanary, Six-Fours, Saint-Cyr and Ollioules - cites problems caused by displays of drunkenness: noise, violence, late-night nuisance and vandalism.
Café and restaurant terraces are safe from the ban. The authorities have in mind parks, streets, pedestrianised precincts, car parks and the areas around schools and sports facilities.
The accompanying cartoon show a policeman instructing a drunk to blow into a breathalyser, informing him that he is suspected of being drunk in charge of a park bench.
Obviously, the people responsible for law and order in these towns must know what they are doing. The policy generally applies to groups of people, though in Six-Fours a solitary public drinker would be in trouble, too. The fine for offenders is 38 euros (about £26).
My bet is that the penalties will not need to be imposed very often. In some big cities, such as Rennes, there is certainly a greater problem; I am not sure if this persists, but quite a bit of concern was caused by large groups of young people gathering regularly in the town centre to drink themselves silly outside cafés (the café owners were probably the most displeased of all because the drink had been bought not from them but cheaply at supermarkets).
Yet most British people visiting France this summer will still go home believing in French sobriety. And most French people will continue to talk smugly about binge drinking - they even use the same phrase - being just another vice anglais.
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